City Of Dreams: A Maze Of Lights And Shadows

City Of Dreams (2001) is one of Twin Peaks creator David Lynch’s best-known films . Like practically the entirety of his work, it is a film that leaves no one indifferent and that continues to arouse admiration and perplexity in equal measure.

The passage of time ended up granting it the title of one of the best films of that century, although that doesn’t mean we can speak of unanimous approval.

Making a synopsis of this film is somewhat thorny due to its very structure, but we can say that it all starts when a young woman survives death twice, as it seems she was going to be murdered while traveling by car when, paradoxically, the vehicle gets involved in a accident, allowing her to survive.

In her purse, there is only money and a small blue key, but nothing that seems to give a clue as to her identity. After the accident, she loses her memory and hides in a house that doesn’t belong to her.

Betty, on the other hand, is an aspiring actress to whom her aunt had lent her home in Los Angeles. After arriving at the place that will be his new home, he meets the young woman who suffered the accident, who adopts the name Rita.

From that moment on, the adventure of discovering who Rita really is begins. We’ll get to the most hidden passions of the protagonists and end up witnessing a disjointed-looking spectacle.

From the initial thriller , we move on to a kind of absolute darkness and a descent into hell, a game of appearances and symbols that we’ll try to decipher.

Cidade Dos Sonhos was supposed to be a series, but the producers were so scandalized by the pilot episode that they were forced to turn it into a feature film.

Perhaps the problem is trying to watch it from a linear point of view, trying to come to a final explanation and understanding of its totality rather than simply being carried away by the emotions and sensations that your visualization arouses.

Why do we feel the need for everything to be explained? In this article, we’re not going to try to outline an explanation of the movie, but we’re going to try to get closer to some of its main points.

Why explain?

Cidade Dos Sonhos is a veritable labyrinth, a film that appeals to the dreamy and that we can relate to the very structure of our dreams. Over the years, attempts have been made to seek an explanation and, although it seems that there are arguments with more weight than others, the truth is that Lynch himself stated that he prefers not to give an explanation to the film.

At a time when we are used to information overload, it is revitalizing to see a film like Cidade Dos Sonhos . A film that allows the viewer to respond to what has just passed before their eyes.

Art should not always be seen as something that can be explained with words, as it can sometimes involve us on another level and simply awaken in us a certain emotion.

Let’s think for a moment of some pictorial works or even music or poetry. They don’t always contain a clear message, and that’s not very important either. We just revel in and let our emotions get carried away. Cinema can also create this kind of sensation and should not be seen solely as pure entertainment.

Still, the simple fact that Cidade Dos Sonhos leads us to ask countless questions and immerses us in several debates with our surroundings already represents a path towards entertainment.

Lynch’s filmography is usually dream-oriented and, in this sense, we can see the film as a daydream. When we dream, the images and stories that appear in our mind are disconnected, and while we dream, they seem to make sense. However, when waking up, it is difficult to try to explain what we dream to someone, as well as to be able to structure the dream with words.

City of Dreams : an illusion

When we dream, the people who appear in our dreams are people we’ve seen before, even if we don’t remember them or who play different roles than they actually play.

Likewise, spaces in dreams can differ enormously from reality and we can even perform unthinkable actions. So, if we try to establish parallels between Cidade Dos Sonhos and dreams, we come across a theory that seems to fit perfectly.

In addition, the film is full of many symbolisms and even takes us to an absolutely revealing place: the Silence Club. The Silence Club scene is one of the most hypnotic in the film and, at the same time, it is responsible for marking a before and an after.

If so far it seemed that we were seeing a story –or several-, but with a more or less linear structure, after the club, we find ourselves in front of what seems to be a new film.

This strange place works a bit like the Magic Theater in O Lobo da Steppe , the hermetic work of Hermann Hesse. A place to meet, from which nothing will ever be the same again and which, perhaps, contains the secret of the protagonist’s reality.

In fact, the blue tones prevail in this space and seem to evoke a certain duality that we will soon discover in the protagonist. The color blue alludes to mind as well as introspection, and we’ve seen this color in Rita’s key and now we see it in Betty’s box as well.

Thus, the key will open the box, giving way to a new reality, to a succession of stories that, now, seem to be falling into place. Everything we had seen before takes on a new meaning.

We see a clear unfolding of the personality and, thanks to the Silence Club, we discover that we were deceived. Everything we saw was an illusion, a falsehood, just like art, dreams and the film itself.

The club wizard seems to speak to the protagonists, but also to us as spectators, making us wake up from the reverie that Lynch has placed before our eyes.

From a first part on detective codes, we move on to a more obscure second, with an inflection point that is baffling and, at the same time, revealing. From the optimism of a young Betty who seems to be living the American dream, we travel to Diane’s decadence and instability, to the duality that seems to take hold of the protagonist.

Despite all its virtues and successes, we still find critics who cannot fully digest this work. There are those who suggest that perhaps it is overrated, and it may be true. Her interpretations stand out a lot and it was the film that launched the career of Naomi Watts, which we see shine with a masterful acting.

We cannot deny that Cidade Dos Sonhos represents a real puzzle whose final resolution is quite subjective, an exercise for the spectator who will try to dialogue with the film. In short, a real invitation to our minds, an illusory puzzle, not without passions and mistakes.